HUD Secretary Ben Carson found something good to say about the media feeding frenzy that has been surrounding President Donald Trump.

“Let me put it this way,” Carson told the Washington Examiner in an interview, “I’m glad that Trump is drawing all the fire so I can get stuff done.”

Carson, who has been traveling the country as part of a listening tour regarding housing problems in many of the communities where HUD is a major presence, said that Trump is right to fight back against detractors pushing a narrative about Russian collusion with Trump’s campaign, a collusion Trump denies.

Carson, having been a candidate for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, is fully aware of what Trump can do in attack mode, and said that from his perspective Trump has not gone off the deep end.

“I think they’ve done well, given the level of frustration. I mean, can you imagine you’ve been elected president and the only thing anyone wants to talk about is Russia? Can you imagine how frustrating that is?” Carson said.

“People say he’s wild with his tweets and things. I think he’s pretty restrained under the circumstances,” he said.

Advertisement - story continues below

Carson said Trump has a “very, very kind heart” that the public rarely sees.

“We’re philosophically very well aligned. He knows a lot about housing. It’s amazing how much he knows about it. But he’s also a very kindhearted person. You may not see that sometimes because he’s reacting to things that other people are doing and saying. He sometimes reacts rather vigorously,” Carson said.

Carson has not been detached from the effort to get an overhaul of Obamacare through Congress by networking with lawmakers.

“I’ve already spoken to a number of people,” Carson said “(I) made it clear that there are other ways to look at this, and when you guys get tired of arguing, maybe we could talk about that.”

“I’ve talked to Democrats as well … recently,” Carson said, adding that he has talked about the possibility of a compromise when “running into them or talking to them in their offices, or talking to them here.”

“I would hope in the long run that (the Republicans) would make a deal with the Democrats,” he said. “That was the problem with Obamacare. It was done by one party, and you have the other party constantly against it. That’s the same thing that will happen if you pass it this way. At some point, we have to learn.”

In discussing issues closer to the heart of his agency, Carson said his goal is not merely to house the homeless but to help them transform their lives.

“The goal is really to get these people off the streets where they’re in danger, and where they actually cost society more than if you go ahead and take care of them,” Carson said. “We also have to think about the fact that every single human being has potential, and I look at them as human capital, and if we develop that, we’re talking about them becoming part of the engine, and if we don’t develop it, part of the load.”